Back in 2016, there was an interesting article about American companies using new spy-ware on their employees in the form of special badges that hang around one’s neck on a lanyard. These small gadgets have two microphones doing real-time voice analysis, and each comes with sensors that follow where the employees are in the office and motion detectors to record how much they move. More recently, Biohax, a Swedish tech firm, disclosed that it is in talks with a number of UK legal and financial services firms to implant workers with human chip devices. Apparently in Sweden, there are already some 4,000 individuals who are chipped, including 85 of the 500 employees at travel operator Tui. As well as restricting access to controlled areas, these microchips could be used to buy food from the canteen, enter the building, and access files or printers. Needless-to-say, such security-oriented devices have raised major privacy concerns for employees in establishments where they are being introduced.
Employers already have vast quantities of data about their workers. Thanks to the internet, smart IDs, smartphones and the cloud, employers can already check who is looking at a document, when employees are working and whether they might be stealing company files and contacts. The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) will go even further, raising concerns about Orwellian snooping by employers on their workers. Microsoft, the software giant, already offers a programme called MyAnalytics which pulls together data from e-mails, calendars and so on to show employees how they spend their time, how often they are in touch with key contacts and whether they multitask too much.
Most employment contracts in America give employers blanket rights to monitor employees and collect data about them, but few workers are aware of such provisions. Now, some employers are going further, arguing for the need to track every move by employees all in the name of security. The important question becomes what else they are tracking, including personal information related to mental and physical health issues, family matters and the state of one’s emotions on a particular day. Some software can even tell whether one is looking for another job.
An additional concern is that there are more companies which now rely on outside firms to collect and crunch employee information. Privacy concerns will increase and employees may feel violated if they do not think they have given their prior consent to sharing their personal data. It’s one thing to microchip my pet with a locator chip, it’s a completely other issue when an employer does the same for a person. What does this mean for privacy in the workplace of the future? Monitoring employees for performance is one thing, but invading their privacy is a totally different matter. The introduction of such technologies into our personal and work lives is a growing concern. Begging one to ask whether Big Brother is watching our every move and our state of mind?
FROLITICKS 